To Prevent The Increase In COVID-19 Cases During Christmas And New Year Holidays, The Government Will Draft Travel Regulations

ILLUSTRATION / Cisarua Peak Route (Bogor Regency Government)

JAKARTA - The government is making policies for travelers ahead of the Christmas and New Year holidays. This regulation will be made to reduce the number of COVID-19 spread in Indonesia during that period.

Moreover, learning from several previous holiday seasons such as during Eid al-Fitr, Eid al-Adha, and several other holidays, the number of positive cases of COVID-19 often increases due to the mobility of the population to stay in touch with them on vacation.

"To prevent a similar incident from happening again, as a measure to anticipate and increase positive cases during the Christmas and New Year holidays, the government is currently working on travel-related policies during the holiday period," said Wiku, a spokesman for the Task Force (Task Force) on Handling COVID-19. Adisasmito in an online press conference broadcast on the Presidential Secretariat YouTube account, Thursday, December 17.

"The policy currently being drafted also includes testing requirements for travelers in the framework of screening," he added.

Although mentioning this condition may seem difficult to implement, the public must be aware that the reason the government issued it is to protect and prevent a spike in cases.

Moreover, the increase in positive cases is not something that should be underestimated considering that this can have a further impact such as reduced availability of beds in isolation rooms and Intensive Care Unit (ICU) rooms and increased casualties due to this virus.

"Therefore, the Task Force appealed to the public to be obedient so that they can ensure that policies issued can run effectively," he said.

In addition, Wiku also hopes that local governments can make adjustments to protect people in their areas from being exposed to COVID-19. One way to do this is by requiring travelers to come in good health to carry out health screening.

"For local governments, we hope that we can make adjustments to protect their respective regions. One of the safeguards is to require travelers to travel in good health, with screening efforts through antigen swabs which are recognized as a COVID-19 screening tool by WHO," he concluded. .